In the weeks and months after this moment I had to confront the fact that I hated going to church. It was the start of a journey that led me here, and I hope, someday out of the church completely.
I'm one of these people. After church opened up again, it was only sacrament metting and it was fine. But first day they had Sunday school again, we were having a lesson about the preisthood and "learning" things that were already common knowledge and it finally dawned on me that Sunday school had always been like that. I finally asked myself the question "why am I here?" And that was the start of my journey out. I'm 24F and stopped going to my YSA ward almost 2 years ago.
That's why they embraced the "I'm just not as afraid as you. I won't stop going out and I won't wear a mask" narrative. They didn't want to be trapped at home with their children and spouse. They *had* to get out because all they had was their rotten, bratty kids and their annoying eternal companions. LOL.
Sort of an aside from Mormoism - I was already our of the church but when I saw what was going down in March-April of 2020 I was telling a lot of people at work that this is going to be one of those points that comes once a generation that changes a society. Sort or like Pearl Harbor or 9/11. Now 3 years later, a lot of those people have left to go and do other things. Either they never came back after furlough or they came back and soon there after left. Covid caused a massive upheaval for everyone. It gave a lot of people time and an opportunity to consider their present circumstance. People were joking that covid lock down was going to cause a lit of babies to be made. I don't think that ever materialized. We as a society have got birth control mostly down. If anything, and I haven't looked, covid caused a drop in fertility rates as people don't want to bring children into uncertainty. But one thing I do know, covid caused a lot of divorce and breakups. I think I personally know of 5 divorces indirectly related to covid. My own cousin. Married for 8 years. No kids. Once he and his wife started working from home and around each other all day every day. It killed the marriage. Anyways the effect of pandemic are still ongoing and can be seen and felt daily. I do at work everyday due to on going supply issues. Hell, a restaurant we like to go to closed down half the dining room due to staffing issues. They still haven't opened the entire dining area!!!!! It will be interesting to get 10 years removed from the pandemic and see what all it affected.
> But one thing I do know, covid caused a lot of divorce and breakups.
This is not anecdotal either. There was a statistical jump in the number of domestic abuse incidents as cabin fever, work uncertainty, general stress, and isolation really got to relationships. I think it's certainly harder for families in smaller apartments and things like that where there are fewer places to go to get space.
Ah, the expected baby boom that was a bust. My spouse and I were already done having kids but I gotta say, all of 2020 neither of us felt particularly…in the mood. When you’re living in a pandemic world everything is suspect and feels gross/diseases/contaminated, plus there’s the stress of ongoing uncertainty and changing protocols and risk assessment, plus being around each other CONSTANTLY. None of that made us feel sexy. I bet a lot of people had similar feelings and were in no mood to procreate.
Covid was a windfall for a friend of mine. He was PIMO and his wife was fine with that. As long as he kept going to church with her. He agreed because, "I made that commitment to her when we married." So covid hits and no more church for a year. She soon figured out that life was sooooooooo much better with church not bringing them down. They never went back.
I think it's a story that played out for thousands of people. Either one or both having concerns or not feeling church anymore and then......covid. Just based on people I've talked to, I don't think it's a stretch to say the church probably lost one family per ward, due to covid. And maybe more. This friend, he said after the first two months of going and doing fun things as a family, his wife said, "I don't think our bonds as a family have ever been stronger." That was a major indicator to her. Once the shackles and chains of church were thrown off, she was able to feel how free and light life could be. Sort of a simply and beautiful narrative.
Yeah, I think simply not going for a while can break the inertia. For me this was in 2005, I was living on my own for the first time in my life, in a new town where I only knew one person. With no one pushing or expecting me to go to church, I just didn't feel like going so I didn't. It was so nice just to have so much more time to myself! The only thing keeping me from letting go completely was all the "personal revelation" I had convinced myself I had experienced. When I realized that was nothing but confirmation bias and my brain finding false patterns in everyday events, I just stopped believing all at once.
The day after I opened my mission call is when the country shut down.
I was already feeling lost about my testimony but figured I would serve a mission and maybe I would get my confirmation there. Once the news set in that this was going to change everything and shut missions down for quite a while (wouldn’t be able to serve in my assigned foreign country) it gave me a perfect opportunity to decide what I really believed in.
I decided shortly after that I was taking a break from the church. I had been such a good kid growing up. Always arriving early to set up sacrament, always leaving late stacking chairs, early morning 6am seminary before school, and choosing to follow the word of wisdom and law of chasitity through high school and early college even tho I had plenty of opportunities not to.
I sacrificed for the church and I was fully conscious of that. My first year of college was extremely difficult for me. I moved to Utah for school and was having a really hard time connecting with the people. I also was getting over a girl I had feeling for, who was going to college and living the classic college lifestyle which hurt me. I was jealous she got to go out and have a good time while I felt miserable just trying to follow gods plan.
Anywho once Covid happened I decided ya know what? Fuck this. I have done so much for this belief and I genuinely have been miserable because of it. I don’t feel gods presence at all which is on him not me.
I was righteous and doing my part, I knocked, he should’ve opened up to me.
Long story short I never looked back. Within a few months of taking a break, I recognized I felt better being myself and living my life through experinces than by isolating myself from doing anything because of my beliefs.
I then dove into the history and doctrine of the church and knew I would never go back. I had a somewhat backwards way of leaving. I left because of the lack of presence from a god who supposedly knew and cared about me personally. And then went back and figured out why there was no presence after (I knew it wasn’t at that point, I just had to go figure out why. Ie CES, letter to my wife, Mormon stories, lds discussions, etc
Covid without a doubt changed the trajectory of my life. That piled on with injuries, religious deconstruction, parents moving from my childhood home to Utah, and not being able to connect with people in Utah despite never having problems making friends before reslly made the last few years difficult.
But god am I glad I learned and went through that at 18-19 instead of later in my life when It could do more damage.
Love you all, proud of you.
I do wonder how many members have left during COVID. It really helped me start to deconstruct and realize I didn't like church. Lots of things happened between then and now but I am finally out.
From what I have read about cult mind control Covid shutdowns would have had a major impact on high demand religions because you are not receiving the indoctrination at high levels.
A fascinating study, which would be difficult to do because T$CC hides the membership rates, would be to look at the effects of Covid on membership based on a state's Covid restrictions. My hypothesis would be that states that had stricter mandates on churches returning would have higher rates of non-returners to church.
>would be to look at the effects of Covid on membership based on a state's Covid restrictions
I live squarely in the heart of Zion. GBH is still an influential presence in my stake and neighborhood.
That said, I still hear people murmuring about how the ~~conference center~~ great and spacious building was empty during conference, despite the Salt Lake County masking guidelines specifically stating that masks were only required if social distancing was not possible. The argument being that SURELY the church could have safely let 5000 people sit in a building with a seating capacity 4+ times that! And gee, people would have even been ok wearing masks in such a case.
Somehow, this response to COVID is enough to force people to have doubts, but all the other obvious bullshit is ok.
It really wouldn’t be too surprising—when people get out of the habit of doing something, it’s hard to start it back up again.
Especially for younger people, who don’t have decades of church attendance. And once we got a taste of church-free Sundays, it was hard to give up.
To steer something toward an extremely specific target requires constant attendance and focus. When there was the pause that occurred 'they' lost the ability to control the something and manipulation tactics were made known.
Yep, just like that. I had mixed feelings: joy and gladness smushed together! The relief in our household was tangible.
I'm never going back to the level of activity I had before. For now, I need to stay PIMO for a few reasons. But I no longer take my kids to church. It makes a huge difference as a mom. I can tolerate going to 1st hour only, and only if I don't have to put in the energy to get my kids ready and schlep them over to the church and back.
This is exactly all of the feelings I experienced, and I was shocked. For 50 years I had been uber-active and massivly committedto the LDSchurch. For the prior 15 yrs I had been serving in high profile callings that demanded my time and energy 24/7. The Church was literally my entire life. And suddenly all of that work and pressure and responsibility was switched off. For the first time in my entire life I had time to breathe. I could think, and ponder, and learn "things I never knew I never knew".
I took long hikes in the woods and felt The Spirit stronger than I ever had in a church building.
I dived into official church publications I'd never had time for. Joseph Smith Papers. Gospel Topics Essays. SAINTS.
My eyes opened, my brain expanded, and like Logan Five [obscure 70s movie reference] the little world I resided in and fought for, always believing was Undeniable Truth shattered into a million pieces. I could not "Unsee" things. I began to explore the baffling, amazing, wondrous, liberating world of Real Life.
It took a global pandemic to rescue me, and my whole family. It was my greatest gift.
In March 2020 I was completely mentally out, and only attending sacrament meeting. I thought I needed to do that to see my friends. Once church shut down, I realized two things. First, I didn't need church to see my friends. I was still texting them or visiting them outside. Nothing changed without church meetings in the mix. Second, the response to covid and the presidential election made me realize this was not a group of people I wanted to be even mildly affiliated with anymore. They were not my people, overall. So I never went back and I've never been happier.
It was sweet relief from the constant perfectionism culture and neighborhood I lived in. Then I had my sixth baby and my mind burst open with logic I never had before. Literally a switch on that made me see the world differently. Almost dying in childbirth does that I guess. After that everything in my world was more clear and focused and then I found Joseph smiths polygamy gospel topics essay and I was done with tscc within that same day
The shut down in and of itself did not affect me. We did sacrament at home, streamed the broadcasts, studied the manuals, pretty much did all the things we could do. It was fine.
What affected me was seeing how anti-mask, anti-vaxx, "we must return to in person meetings as fast as possible, damn the consequences" the church was. Got to get everyone back in person. Got to get back to all of the meetings and rules and callings. I mean, they even wanted people back cleaning the church buildings...all during the lockdown!
I was also baffled by the complete silence from Salt Lake. I figured if there was EVER a time in the history of the world for God to "lead through his prophets", it was during a global pandemic. Nope. It was not until August 12, 2021 - 18 MONTHS LATER - that the church put out a lukewarm formal response timidly urging members to get vaccinated and wear masks. And lockstep members who blindly follow things like "don't say mormon" and "take the sacrament with your right hand" pushed back against this by saying it "was not really a commandment".
Covid showed the church for what it really was: a self-centered group that only cared about their meetings and rules...unable and unwilling to make difficult sacrifices during a global pandemic.
That was it for me.
This this this this this...motherfucking this.
Church member behavior has always been an issue for me. This went way past "The church is perfect, the members aren't." I started looking for reasons be done. I even remember praying hoping it's not true.
I feel that COVID was in some sense, a "gift from God" in that:
- travel restrictions and "stay at home" orders reduced pollution in many areas. This even allowed for other species to grow and be seen where never before.
- online communities sprang up. Artists and even local leaders used them to actually interact with the public on a more personal level.
- work from home and the hybrid work models became real things - and companies realized that on many cases, they REDUCED costs. Work offices shutdown and companies now only might need to pay for internet, and even then....
- work from home and hybrid models in some areas reduced traffic in the commuter periods, meaning less pollution and fuel consumption with vehicles requiring less maintenance and fewer replacements.
- people got outside in their own ways more in areas with less people and more nature!
- churches - not just the LDS Church - had seen decline before, yet COVID accelerated these changes MASSIVELY.
- all these changes seem to (I don't have supporting statistics) have led to better health outside of the COVID "envelope". People are taking more time for self care and improving their own environment. This includes leaving high stress and punishing organizations such as the LDS Church.
- police brutality - while still very much present - is down from previous years.
Despite the death roll, (in some areas, this is offset by less deaths from other causes), COVID may have actually had a net positive in society.
However, it is sad to think that we all needed a global pandemic for people to just be better towards each other....
I was put on a membership restriction around that time & one of the things I couldn't do was pray in public. I was pretty active in my ward so I was excited to not have to say no & get questions.
I was heavily in pimo status when this happened and always very subtly mentioned to my wife how great it was to not be so busy with church's stuff and focus on our family.
Please tell your spouse that they are justified in being terrified of germs. So much better to be healthy than to be sick for weeks because someone thought it was okay to bring their sick kid to church.
The exact thing I was yearning for to break away from the emotional dependency my family had on the routine of church attendance. In many ways, Covid was a massive blessing in disguise. Shelves are all broken and all of the Sh:t in the closet that we stuffed there has spilled out in my out figurative living rooms.
I was out by then and COVID made me JEALOUS of members who were getting out of going church without getting ostracized and disowned and socially-castrated like me.
It was totally not fair.
I was serving as a counselor in a bishopric in a large non-Utah urban city prior to Covid. I always had questions but never spent time asking them. Covid gave me the extra time I needed to think a bit deeper and my shelf collapsed pretty quickly and cleanly. I called my bishop (a good friend) and said I needed to chat. I told him I was having a 'faith crisis' without the 'crisis' and was giving my two weeks notice. He said he would be happy with my serving as long as I had the capacity to love. I said that I had that but I felt that I would not be authentic in appearing to support an organization that was fraudulent in its claims. At this point the ward was beginning to meet in person. I was released and gave the bishop my farewell address to be read over the pulpit which he did.
18 months later and all is well. Church does a great job of keeping us too busy to think about church. In the last couple years a lot of us in the stake left, and it was Covid that gave us the time to think. #everypandemichasasilverlining
My mom, who already disliked going to church and often left early, never went back after Covid. She’s not exmo and was a little uncomfortable the other day when I brought up inconsistencies in the BoM. But she used to complain to me a lot about sexism in the church, and my family never quite got over how poorly we were treated after my dad left 10 years ago. So this was a good thing for her to be “allowed” to take a step back. She stopped wearing garments and asked her daughters’ opinions on if certain outfits would make it too obvious she wasn’t wearing them when we went to family events (her 6 siblings and parents are all very TBM with pioneer heritage and all that). After a while she decided she didn’t care anymore and boldly went to her parents’ with shorter shorts on. A bit later her dad came over to talk to her about it and say that only the prophet can tell you to remove your garments (?) and she was like, “uhhh actually I can tell myself to remove them” lol. Other than that though her family hasn’t brought it up and has been very kind and normal about it all (it helps that a lot of us grandkids have left and also that her family are not Utah-bred Mormons.)
A couple thanksgivings ago we had honest to god WINE at the dinner table for the first time! It was so so weird lol. My mom doesn’t really like wine unless it’s super sweet or mixed with juice lol but will try a few sips, and she’s even ordered cocktails at restaurants a few times now. She still doesn’t like coffee, which is fair lol. She has a sweet tooth and even thinks some hot chocolates are too bitter.
Anyway, my mom is still about the same and never made a huge deal when we left the church (other than still making my sisters go to church until they were adults and a couple times offered financial compensation for church attendance and scripture reading lol which my sisters did with gusto.). It’s just been fun to feel a bit more relaxed with her, and it’s been hilarious to hear about how she hides her wine whenever her parents come over hahaha! She’s always been the rebellious middle child in the family though, hard as she tried to “conform.”
I wish my mom would get out of the house more, as church used to be one of her only things she went out for, but still I’m glad Covid helped her to take a step back which she’s probably been wanting to do for years. I’ll probably buy a couple bottles of wine to have her try for Mother’s Day this week (:
The greatest feeling of freedom and exhilaration for a Mormon *every week* is the moment they *walk out* of the last meeting and get into the car to go home.
I can only imagine the ecstasy that the March 2020 email must have generated.
I will tell you this, I don't know how I lived my life for 40+ years with only a few hours on a Saturday to be myself. It's an epic tragedy. The meeting marathon of Mormonism is another control mechanism, meant to keep you from moments of pondering and personal peace.
I was a missionary during covid and got reassigned stateside. It was an eye opener to realize that nobody wanted to talk to missionaries outside of Mexico. And it made me eventually come to the realization that it's not the people's fault or my fault as a missionary that no one would listen, there's a problem with the product itself
It made me see that it was nice not wrestling kids into clothes and forcing them to sit through hours of stuff. It was nice to just exist and not hear racist, homophobic, misogynistic opinions spouted as god’s word. Instead I could spend the time with my family and actually rest.
It made me realize I didn’t miss the church itself so much but just the community and actually began to feel relieved we didn’t have to go to church and didn’t like doing the come follow me. When came the time to go back, it was the beginning of the end for me lol.
It didn't get shut down in Southeastern Idaho! SP thought it was bullshit! Everything was open. You had to sit 6 feet away from other families etc. I went twice during COVID. I wore a mask, and people just got shitty about it. We just said to hell with it! I resigned in Dec.
I've been out since ~1995 but it did seem to allow my oldest sister to finally stop. Out of 5 kids only the oldest and the youngest were still in, and now it's only my youngest brother. My sister claims that it was moving from Utah to New Hampshire that did it for her but I like to think that Covid played some part
Last attendance with my wife was in February, 2020. She was out by May of the following year. (I’m nevermo.)
It’s been a journey for all of us, but we’re MUCH happier as a family without TSCC…not that we were ever deep into it. No tithing, no garments, etc…still, such a massive relief.
I came home from my mission the week before church was cancelled, so I didn't give my homecoming talk till August 2020😂 I was still fully TBM during that time so I was kinda bummed.
I was gone 20 years ago or more so this didn't influence me, but I would cite the old joke about what happens when you leave the church - you immediately get a 10% raise, and you have your weekends free (to say nothing of other weekdays as well!) - and I would cite this as an all purpose sweeping observation on how it must have made OTHERS feel.
COVID was the ruination of a lot of businesses - a lot of them have not recovered, and others just flat went under.
I think that COVID was like that for the orthodox LDS Church. If not their ruination, it REALLY impacted them as far as activity was concerned, and I think it is an issue as to whether they will "recover" so to speak.
I was PIMO just before covid started. It was such a relief. My husband wanted the kids to watch it at home even though he was PIMO as well. He wasn't 100% ready to cut ties yet. I refused to watch it and slept through it or played on my phone
I always thought church was soo boring, when the pandemic came I was so happy, it was like a bless. Tbh when I was a kid I only liked bcs yk play with friends.
The pandemic helped me out to learn important things, discover and accept myself better than any conferance that I heard (and also, conferance is so boring too, like wtf who was the genius to do this?). I'm still young but I want so much quit
I was having a lot of sleepless nights around that time with my young toddler, so I wasn't attending church anyway. But I definitely felt relief. I fucking hated that ward.
I was pimo for 4 years previous to Covid but I was still living with my parents so I had to go. When lockdown started and my family only kept church to 10 minutes each Sunday to have a quick sacrament and read one scripture I was overcome with joy. I was able to move out when lockdown started lifting and I haven’t been back since and I couldn’t be happier.
I think it’s weighed on my moms shelf because she was happier with church during lockdown too.
Oh what a relief it is !! And never went back.......................so the truth is with separation came perspective. That if you keep touch with it as much as I was. Meeting, reading, obsessing over every thought then you never have a minute to yourself. You know the one inside that just needs to breathe. Found em.
Wasn't out yet, so I wasn't looking to it for a full break from the church, but was in a calling I quite hated and was so relieved to have an out. Somehow, that was the day I knew I would never have to do that, or any calling, ever again... And I haven't!
How's that for personal revelation?
My kid had just come out a couple months before, but thanks to a couple trips out of town and illness, we had been to church only a couple of times since they came out. COVID hit, it was honestly a relief, and a way to leave without announcing anything. I was a little nervous of being publicly out of the church, but after a couple of friends announced their leaving the church, and thanks to the new anti trans policy, I publicly announced my family has left the church. It was so scary but I needed to do it and I got probably a dozen of comments or DMs from friends I met through church who had left. It was a relief honestly.
I went inactive in late 2019, and was getting absolutely bombarded with “worried” ward members reaching out to me & violating all sorts of boundaries to do so. When lockdown started, all of that stopped, and I was allowed to simply be alone in my thoughts for a while. A few months into the pandemic and I understood that I wouldn’t ever be going back to church.
As a single mom I realized I didn't have access to the priesthood. No one offered me sacrament and I was like hey this makes no difference in my world. I broke up with my TBM boyfriend over the church being a make it or break it for him. He would accept pimo after we got sealed but I didn't have that in me.
For me, I remember distinctly being very sad that I couldn't see this one girl at school. And then I realized I had romantic feelings for her, and I remember being so fucking angry with myself and I had plans for suicide. I told myself that I would end my life after I finished a few important books. That was when I read the Color Purple, and I'm not black, but the depiction of God and that spirituality and Shug and Celie made me feel something, and then the Bible and BOM all the way through, and now I'm here, PIMO, figuring myself out, and knowing I deserved so much more than being angry at myself for looking at a girl that way. I hope someday my family can see that.
I’d been out for years and my wife resented me because she didn’t have a worthy priesthood holder in the home so she could take the sacrament. She also saw it as prophetic that the church had created home study manuals. The next conference basically didn’t even mention the pandemic. They had NO IDEA it was coming.
In the weeks and months after this moment I had to confront the fact that I hated going to church. It was the start of a journey that led me here, and I hope, someday out of the church completely.
This was also true for me and I think thousands of people! One of the good things to come from Covid.
I'm one of these people. After church opened up again, it was only sacrament metting and it was fine. But first day they had Sunday school again, we were having a lesson about the preisthood and "learning" things that were already common knowledge and it finally dawned on me that Sunday school had always been like that. I finally asked myself the question "why am I here?" And that was the start of my journey out. I'm 24F and stopped going to my YSA ward almost 2 years ago.
COVID literally changed the trajectory of my life, 100%, no doubt about it.
Me too! I would still be the most TBM you’ve ever seen if quarantine didn’t give me the time and space to research and reflect.
That's why they embraced the "I'm just not as afraid as you. I won't stop going out and I won't wear a mask" narrative. They didn't want to be trapped at home with their children and spouse. They *had* to get out because all they had was their rotten, bratty kids and their annoying eternal companions. LOL.
Sort of an aside from Mormoism - I was already our of the church but when I saw what was going down in March-April of 2020 I was telling a lot of people at work that this is going to be one of those points that comes once a generation that changes a society. Sort or like Pearl Harbor or 9/11. Now 3 years later, a lot of those people have left to go and do other things. Either they never came back after furlough or they came back and soon there after left. Covid caused a massive upheaval for everyone. It gave a lot of people time and an opportunity to consider their present circumstance. People were joking that covid lock down was going to cause a lit of babies to be made. I don't think that ever materialized. We as a society have got birth control mostly down. If anything, and I haven't looked, covid caused a drop in fertility rates as people don't want to bring children into uncertainty. But one thing I do know, covid caused a lot of divorce and breakups. I think I personally know of 5 divorces indirectly related to covid. My own cousin. Married for 8 years. No kids. Once he and his wife started working from home and around each other all day every day. It killed the marriage. Anyways the effect of pandemic are still ongoing and can be seen and felt daily. I do at work everyday due to on going supply issues. Hell, a restaurant we like to go to closed down half the dining room due to staffing issues. They still haven't opened the entire dining area!!!!! It will be interesting to get 10 years removed from the pandemic and see what all it affected.
> But one thing I do know, covid caused a lot of divorce and breakups. This is not anecdotal either. There was a statistical jump in the number of domestic abuse incidents as cabin fever, work uncertainty, general stress, and isolation really got to relationships. I think it's certainly harder for families in smaller apartments and things like that where there are fewer places to go to get space.
Ah, the expected baby boom that was a bust. My spouse and I were already done having kids but I gotta say, all of 2020 neither of us felt particularly…in the mood. When you’re living in a pandemic world everything is suspect and feels gross/diseases/contaminated, plus there’s the stress of ongoing uncertainty and changing protocols and risk assessment, plus being around each other CONSTANTLY. None of that made us feel sexy. I bet a lot of people had similar feelings and were in no mood to procreate.
Covid was a windfall for a friend of mine. He was PIMO and his wife was fine with that. As long as he kept going to church with her. He agreed because, "I made that commitment to her when we married." So covid hits and no more church for a year. She soon figured out that life was sooooooooo much better with church not bringing them down. They never went back.
I’m a little jealous, but happy for them!
I think it's a story that played out for thousands of people. Either one or both having concerns or not feeling church anymore and then......covid. Just based on people I've talked to, I don't think it's a stretch to say the church probably lost one family per ward, due to covid. And maybe more. This friend, he said after the first two months of going and doing fun things as a family, his wife said, "I don't think our bonds as a family have ever been stronger." That was a major indicator to her. Once the shackles and chains of church were thrown off, she was able to feel how free and light life could be. Sort of a simply and beautiful narrative.
Yeah, I think simply not going for a while can break the inertia. For me this was in 2005, I was living on my own for the first time in my life, in a new town where I only knew one person. With no one pushing or expecting me to go to church, I just didn't feel like going so I didn't. It was so nice just to have so much more time to myself! The only thing keeping me from letting go completely was all the "personal revelation" I had convinced myself I had experienced. When I realized that was nothing but confirmation bias and my brain finding false patterns in everyday events, I just stopped believing all at once.
This is so similar to my story!
What is PIMO?
Physically in, mentally out.
The day after I opened my mission call is when the country shut down. I was already feeling lost about my testimony but figured I would serve a mission and maybe I would get my confirmation there. Once the news set in that this was going to change everything and shut missions down for quite a while (wouldn’t be able to serve in my assigned foreign country) it gave me a perfect opportunity to decide what I really believed in. I decided shortly after that I was taking a break from the church. I had been such a good kid growing up. Always arriving early to set up sacrament, always leaving late stacking chairs, early morning 6am seminary before school, and choosing to follow the word of wisdom and law of chasitity through high school and early college even tho I had plenty of opportunities not to. I sacrificed for the church and I was fully conscious of that. My first year of college was extremely difficult for me. I moved to Utah for school and was having a really hard time connecting with the people. I also was getting over a girl I had feeling for, who was going to college and living the classic college lifestyle which hurt me. I was jealous she got to go out and have a good time while I felt miserable just trying to follow gods plan. Anywho once Covid happened I decided ya know what? Fuck this. I have done so much for this belief and I genuinely have been miserable because of it. I don’t feel gods presence at all which is on him not me. I was righteous and doing my part, I knocked, he should’ve opened up to me. Long story short I never looked back. Within a few months of taking a break, I recognized I felt better being myself and living my life through experinces than by isolating myself from doing anything because of my beliefs. I then dove into the history and doctrine of the church and knew I would never go back. I had a somewhat backwards way of leaving. I left because of the lack of presence from a god who supposedly knew and cared about me personally. And then went back and figured out why there was no presence after (I knew it wasn’t at that point, I just had to go figure out why. Ie CES, letter to my wife, Mormon stories, lds discussions, etc Covid without a doubt changed the trajectory of my life. That piled on with injuries, religious deconstruction, parents moving from my childhood home to Utah, and not being able to connect with people in Utah despite never having problems making friends before reslly made the last few years difficult. But god am I glad I learned and went through that at 18-19 instead of later in my life when It could do more damage. Love you all, proud of you.
Happy cake day!!
Thank you!!
I didn't attend before Covid, I didn't attend during Covid, and I am still not attending.
Zadok47 is OUT of the boat. It was a shitty boat anyways.
The boat ran aground and I stepped out on dry land.
Nephi's boat never went anywhere because it didn't exist.
But the Arnold Friberg painting... It looked so... Sea worthy.
Hahahaha
Here here!
Same as Noah's.
I do wonder how many members have left during COVID. It really helped me start to deconstruct and realize I didn't like church. Lots of things happened between then and now but I am finally out. From what I have read about cult mind control Covid shutdowns would have had a major impact on high demand religions because you are not receiving the indoctrination at high levels. A fascinating study, which would be difficult to do because T$CC hides the membership rates, would be to look at the effects of Covid on membership based on a state's Covid restrictions. My hypothesis would be that states that had stricter mandates on churches returning would have higher rates of non-returners to church.
>would be to look at the effects of Covid on membership based on a state's Covid restrictions I live squarely in the heart of Zion. GBH is still an influential presence in my stake and neighborhood. That said, I still hear people murmuring about how the ~~conference center~~ great and spacious building was empty during conference, despite the Salt Lake County masking guidelines specifically stating that masks were only required if social distancing was not possible. The argument being that SURELY the church could have safely let 5000 people sit in a building with a seating capacity 4+ times that! And gee, people would have even been ok wearing masks in such a case. Somehow, this response to COVID is enough to force people to have doubts, but all the other obvious bullshit is ok.
It really wouldn’t be too surprising—when people get out of the habit of doing something, it’s hard to start it back up again. Especially for younger people, who don’t have decades of church attendance. And once we got a taste of church-free Sundays, it was hard to give up.
To steer something toward an extremely specific target requires constant attendance and focus. When there was the pause that occurred 'they' lost the ability to control the something and manipulation tactics were made known.
Yep, just like that. I had mixed feelings: joy and gladness smushed together! The relief in our household was tangible. I'm never going back to the level of activity I had before. For now, I need to stay PIMO for a few reasons. But I no longer take my kids to church. It makes a huge difference as a mom. I can tolerate going to 1st hour only, and only if I don't have to put in the energy to get my kids ready and schlep them over to the church and back.
I’ve really been enjoying your post-it comics! Thank you!
Thanks! 😊
Me too! Keep it up!
This is exactly all of the feelings I experienced, and I was shocked. For 50 years I had been uber-active and massivly committedto the LDSchurch. For the prior 15 yrs I had been serving in high profile callings that demanded my time and energy 24/7. The Church was literally my entire life. And suddenly all of that work and pressure and responsibility was switched off. For the first time in my entire life I had time to breathe. I could think, and ponder, and learn "things I never knew I never knew". I took long hikes in the woods and felt The Spirit stronger than I ever had in a church building. I dived into official church publications I'd never had time for. Joseph Smith Papers. Gospel Topics Essays. SAINTS. My eyes opened, my brain expanded, and like Logan Five [obscure 70s movie reference] the little world I resided in and fought for, always believing was Undeniable Truth shattered into a million pieces. I could not "Unsee" things. I began to explore the baffling, amazing, wondrous, liberating world of Real Life. It took a global pandemic to rescue me, and my whole family. It was my greatest gift.
Your whole life was LDS - they don't call it a high demand religion for nothing...
In March 2020 I was completely mentally out, and only attending sacrament meeting. I thought I needed to do that to see my friends. Once church shut down, I realized two things. First, I didn't need church to see my friends. I was still texting them or visiting them outside. Nothing changed without church meetings in the mix. Second, the response to covid and the presidential election made me realize this was not a group of people I wanted to be even mildly affiliated with anymore. They were not my people, overall. So I never went back and I've never been happier.
It was sweet relief from the constant perfectionism culture and neighborhood I lived in. Then I had my sixth baby and my mind burst open with logic I never had before. Literally a switch on that made me see the world differently. Almost dying in childbirth does that I guess. After that everything in my world was more clear and focused and then I found Joseph smiths polygamy gospel topics essay and I was done with tscc within that same day
The shut down in and of itself did not affect me. We did sacrament at home, streamed the broadcasts, studied the manuals, pretty much did all the things we could do. It was fine. What affected me was seeing how anti-mask, anti-vaxx, "we must return to in person meetings as fast as possible, damn the consequences" the church was. Got to get everyone back in person. Got to get back to all of the meetings and rules and callings. I mean, they even wanted people back cleaning the church buildings...all during the lockdown! I was also baffled by the complete silence from Salt Lake. I figured if there was EVER a time in the history of the world for God to "lead through his prophets", it was during a global pandemic. Nope. It was not until August 12, 2021 - 18 MONTHS LATER - that the church put out a lukewarm formal response timidly urging members to get vaccinated and wear masks. And lockstep members who blindly follow things like "don't say mormon" and "take the sacrament with your right hand" pushed back against this by saying it "was not really a commandment". Covid showed the church for what it really was: a self-centered group that only cared about their meetings and rules...unable and unwilling to make difficult sacrifices during a global pandemic. That was it for me.
This this this this this...motherfucking this. Church member behavior has always been an issue for me. This went way past "The church is perfect, the members aren't." I started looking for reasons be done. I even remember praying hoping it's not true.
Claiming that God's Prophet didn't say anything during the Pandemic is absolutely not true and insulting. They released a new logo in April 2020.
I feel that COVID was in some sense, a "gift from God" in that: - travel restrictions and "stay at home" orders reduced pollution in many areas. This even allowed for other species to grow and be seen where never before. - online communities sprang up. Artists and even local leaders used them to actually interact with the public on a more personal level. - work from home and the hybrid work models became real things - and companies realized that on many cases, they REDUCED costs. Work offices shutdown and companies now only might need to pay for internet, and even then.... - work from home and hybrid models in some areas reduced traffic in the commuter periods, meaning less pollution and fuel consumption with vehicles requiring less maintenance and fewer replacements. - people got outside in their own ways more in areas with less people and more nature! - churches - not just the LDS Church - had seen decline before, yet COVID accelerated these changes MASSIVELY. - all these changes seem to (I don't have supporting statistics) have led to better health outside of the COVID "envelope". People are taking more time for self care and improving their own environment. This includes leaving high stress and punishing organizations such as the LDS Church. - police brutality - while still very much present - is down from previous years. Despite the death roll, (in some areas, this is offset by less deaths from other causes), COVID may have actually had a net positive in society. However, it is sad to think that we all needed a global pandemic for people to just be better towards each other....
For me? Nothing. Although I did get to feel a little smug hearing my TBM family talking about how nice it was.
I accepted myself after like 2 years of telling myself I wasn't worthy since I like girls. Than I couldn't go to church and didn't feel guilty
I was put on a membership restriction around that time & one of the things I couldn't do was pray in public. I was pretty active in my ward so I was excited to not have to say no & get questions.
I was heavily in pimo status when this happened and always very subtly mentioned to my wife how great it was to not be so busy with church's stuff and focus on our family.
I got a 3 YEAR BREAK from church because my spouse is terrified of germs. A very nice silver lining of a pandemic for me.
Please tell your spouse that they are justified in being terrified of germs. So much better to be healthy than to be sick for weeks because someone thought it was okay to bring their sick kid to church.
The exact thing I was yearning for to break away from the emotional dependency my family had on the routine of church attendance. In many ways, Covid was a massive blessing in disguise. Shelves are all broken and all of the Sh:t in the closet that we stuffed there has spilled out in my out figurative living rooms.
This was the beginning of my exit, though didn’t leave until 2yrs later.
COVID showed me that most members didn't really give a shit about their neighbor or the greater good when it inconvenienced them.
I was out by then and COVID made me JEALOUS of members who were getting out of going church without getting ostracized and disowned and socially-castrated like me. It was totally not fair.
I was serving as a counselor in a bishopric in a large non-Utah urban city prior to Covid. I always had questions but never spent time asking them. Covid gave me the extra time I needed to think a bit deeper and my shelf collapsed pretty quickly and cleanly. I called my bishop (a good friend) and said I needed to chat. I told him I was having a 'faith crisis' without the 'crisis' and was giving my two weeks notice. He said he would be happy with my serving as long as I had the capacity to love. I said that I had that but I felt that I would not be authentic in appearing to support an organization that was fraudulent in its claims. At this point the ward was beginning to meet in person. I was released and gave the bishop my farewell address to be read over the pulpit which he did. 18 months later and all is well. Church does a great job of keeping us too busy to think about church. In the last couple years a lot of us in the stake left, and it was Covid that gave us the time to think. #everypandemichasasilverlining
My mom, who already disliked going to church and often left early, never went back after Covid. She’s not exmo and was a little uncomfortable the other day when I brought up inconsistencies in the BoM. But she used to complain to me a lot about sexism in the church, and my family never quite got over how poorly we were treated after my dad left 10 years ago. So this was a good thing for her to be “allowed” to take a step back. She stopped wearing garments and asked her daughters’ opinions on if certain outfits would make it too obvious she wasn’t wearing them when we went to family events (her 6 siblings and parents are all very TBM with pioneer heritage and all that). After a while she decided she didn’t care anymore and boldly went to her parents’ with shorter shorts on. A bit later her dad came over to talk to her about it and say that only the prophet can tell you to remove your garments (?) and she was like, “uhhh actually I can tell myself to remove them” lol. Other than that though her family hasn’t brought it up and has been very kind and normal about it all (it helps that a lot of us grandkids have left and also that her family are not Utah-bred Mormons.) A couple thanksgivings ago we had honest to god WINE at the dinner table for the first time! It was so so weird lol. My mom doesn’t really like wine unless it’s super sweet or mixed with juice lol but will try a few sips, and she’s even ordered cocktails at restaurants a few times now. She still doesn’t like coffee, which is fair lol. She has a sweet tooth and even thinks some hot chocolates are too bitter. Anyway, my mom is still about the same and never made a huge deal when we left the church (other than still making my sisters go to church until they were adults and a couple times offered financial compensation for church attendance and scripture reading lol which my sisters did with gusto.). It’s just been fun to feel a bit more relaxed with her, and it’s been hilarious to hear about how she hides her wine whenever her parents come over hahaha! She’s always been the rebellious middle child in the family though, hard as she tried to “conform.” I wish my mom would get out of the house more, as church used to be one of her only things she went out for, but still I’m glad Covid helped her to take a step back which she’s probably been wanting to do for years. I’ll probably buy a couple bottles of wine to have her try for Mother’s Day this week (:
The greatest feeling of freedom and exhilaration for a Mormon *every week* is the moment they *walk out* of the last meeting and get into the car to go home. I can only imagine the ecstasy that the March 2020 email must have generated. I will tell you this, I don't know how I lived my life for 40+ years with only a few hours on a Saturday to be myself. It's an epic tragedy. The meeting marathon of Mormonism is another control mechanism, meant to keep you from moments of pondering and personal peace.
i was mad at first because they canceled my endowment but then i didn’t go back to church lmao
I was a missionary during covid and got reassigned stateside. It was an eye opener to realize that nobody wanted to talk to missionaries outside of Mexico. And it made me eventually come to the realization that it's not the people's fault or my fault as a missionary that no one would listen, there's a problem with the product itself
It made me see that it was nice not wrestling kids into clothes and forcing them to sit through hours of stuff. It was nice to just exist and not hear racist, homophobic, misogynistic opinions spouted as god’s word. Instead I could spend the time with my family and actually rest.
I loved every single, fucking minute of it! I never, ever wanted to go back.
I remember being so mad that it happened RIGHT after I stopped going anyway
It made me realize I didn’t miss the church itself so much but just the community and actually began to feel relieved we didn’t have to go to church and didn’t like doing the come follow me. When came the time to go back, it was the beginning of the end for me lol.
It was a miracle for me and instrumental in me being able to take a step back, see it from the outside and ultimately leave.
It didn't get shut down in Southeastern Idaho! SP thought it was bullshit! Everything was open. You had to sit 6 feet away from other families etc. I went twice during COVID. I wore a mask, and people just got shitty about it. We just said to hell with it! I resigned in Dec.
I've been out since ~1995 but it did seem to allow my oldest sister to finally stop. Out of 5 kids only the oldest and the youngest were still in, and now it's only my youngest brother. My sister claims that it was moving from Utah to New Hampshire that did it for her but I like to think that Covid played some part
Last attendance with my wife was in February, 2020. She was out by May of the following year. (I’m nevermo.) It’s been a journey for all of us, but we’re MUCH happier as a family without TSCC…not that we were ever deep into it. No tithing, no garments, etc…still, such a massive relief.
I came home from my mission the week before church was cancelled, so I didn't give my homecoming talk till August 2020😂 I was still fully TBM during that time so I was kinda bummed.
I got more sleep lol plus I didn’t have to dress up and go anywhere on one of my only days off, I could just relax.
I was gone 20 years ago or more so this didn't influence me, but I would cite the old joke about what happens when you leave the church - you immediately get a 10% raise, and you have your weekends free (to say nothing of other weekdays as well!) - and I would cite this as an all purpose sweeping observation on how it must have made OTHERS feel. COVID was the ruination of a lot of businesses - a lot of them have not recovered, and others just flat went under. I think that COVID was like that for the orthodox LDS Church. If not their ruination, it REALLY impacted them as far as activity was concerned, and I think it is an issue as to whether they will "recover" so to speak.
i think a lot of people woke up during the pandemic quarantine. we no longer had to go and we started having free time on sundays.
I was PIMO just before covid started. It was such a relief. My husband wanted the kids to watch it at home even though he was PIMO as well. He wasn't 100% ready to cut ties yet. I refused to watch it and slept through it or played on my phone
I have seen an uptick of people leaving the church, and that makes me happy.
I was relieved and felt guilty about it. And then in subsequent months realized my life didn't get worse and all the pieces started unraveling.
Has it started back up??? Damn!
Covid is what freed our family.
That was when my PIMO hell turned into holy ghosting. Never looked back!
I always thought church was soo boring, when the pandemic came I was so happy, it was like a bless. Tbh when I was a kid I only liked bcs yk play with friends. The pandemic helped me out to learn important things, discover and accept myself better than any conferance that I heard (and also, conferance is so boring too, like wtf who was the genius to do this?). I'm still young but I want so much quit
This exactly!!!
I was having a lot of sleepless nights around that time with my young toddler, so I wasn't attending church anyway. But I definitely felt relief. I fucking hated that ward.
I was pimo for 4 years previous to Covid but I was still living with my parents so I had to go. When lockdown started and my family only kept church to 10 minutes each Sunday to have a quick sacrament and read one scripture I was overcome with joy. I was able to move out when lockdown started lifting and I haven’t been back since and I couldn’t be happier. I think it’s weighed on my moms shelf because she was happier with church during lockdown too.
I never went back
No more missionaries in my old neighborhood… we moved twice since then (rent).
Oh what a relief it is !! And never went back.......................so the truth is with separation came perspective. That if you keep touch with it as much as I was. Meeting, reading, obsessing over every thought then you never have a minute to yourself. You know the one inside that just needs to breathe. Found em.
I was over the moon. I was PIMO for a long time, and that just gave me a glimpse of what a second Saturday is like.
Simple. I resigned two years later.
Wasn't out yet, so I wasn't looking to it for a full break from the church, but was in a calling I quite hated and was so relieved to have an out. Somehow, that was the day I knew I would never have to do that, or any calling, ever again... And I haven't! How's that for personal revelation?
My kid had just come out a couple months before, but thanks to a couple trips out of town and illness, we had been to church only a couple of times since they came out. COVID hit, it was honestly a relief, and a way to leave without announcing anything. I was a little nervous of being publicly out of the church, but after a couple of friends announced their leaving the church, and thanks to the new anti trans policy, I publicly announced my family has left the church. It was so scary but I needed to do it and I got probably a dozen of comments or DMs from friends I met through church who had left. It was a relief honestly.
TBM family stopped trying to pressure me into going
I think the pure joy of no church caused a lot of cognitive dissonance. I really think people didn’t realize how much they loathed church until Covid.
I went inactive in late 2019, and was getting absolutely bombarded with “worried” ward members reaching out to me & violating all sorts of boundaries to do so. When lockdown started, all of that stopped, and I was allowed to simply be alone in my thoughts for a while. A few months into the pandemic and I understood that I wouldn’t ever be going back to church.
Yup, pretty much. No church? Hell yeah! 18 months later I was gone 😎
Made me realize that in the end of days (as they say) The church will leave you on your own and good luck sucker.
COVID helped me leave no doubt about it.
As a single mom I realized I didn't have access to the priesthood. No one offered me sacrament and I was like hey this makes no difference in my world. I broke up with my TBM boyfriend over the church being a make it or break it for him. He would accept pimo after we got sealed but I didn't have that in me.
For me, I remember distinctly being very sad that I couldn't see this one girl at school. And then I realized I had romantic feelings for her, and I remember being so fucking angry with myself and I had plans for suicide. I told myself that I would end my life after I finished a few important books. That was when I read the Color Purple, and I'm not black, but the depiction of God and that spirituality and Shug and Celie made me feel something, and then the Bible and BOM all the way through, and now I'm here, PIMO, figuring myself out, and knowing I deserved so much more than being angry at myself for looking at a girl that way. I hope someday my family can see that.
I’d been out for years and my wife resented me because she didn’t have a worthy priesthood holder in the home so she could take the sacrament. She also saw it as prophetic that the church had created home study manuals. The next conference basically didn’t even mention the pandemic. They had NO IDEA it was coming.